Say Something
by Takianna
Summary: ATTN: Contains spoilers for Season 6 of the Clone Wars. If you haven't seen it, don't read this. Captain Rex hatches a plan, but it could be short lived. AU. Please keep your snarky comments to yourself if you don't have anything nice to say.


"Say something," Rex said breaking the silence between them. It was all laid out there and ready for the taking, if only she would listen the justification he had given her. She was a jedi though and rather stubborn at that.

"You know this for a fact?" Ahsoka asked peering at him with her piercing blue eyes. Somehow when she was giving him 'that look' he felt as though she were peering through him to see his insides. It was unnerving at times.

"I know," he said bluntly.

Rex had heard rumors, but that had been all they had been in the beginning, until he had received proof that the clones were now carrying time bombs in their brains. Cleverly packed away in the brain tissue before they were even grown to full size by the Kamino doctors and genetic engineers. He never doubted the stories Fives had told him about Tup, but some people were calling him crazy. Rex knew Fives and knew the kind of man he was. He was kind and always looking out for a brother. Fives was stable. He wouldn't be one to make up stories about what he had found on Kamino.

"There is no proof, Rex," Ahsoka said and crossed her arms over her chest. "We have to have some sort of proof."

"I'm all the proof you'll need Ahsoka, " he said crossing the distance between them in two steps. "It's here in my head." Rex knocked on the side of his head and then looked at her.

Ahsoka shook her head as she looked up at him. Rex knew that look. She thought of him as a brother and knowing that he was programmed to kill jedi, was a very difficult thing to come to terms with because she knew that he would never hurt her intentionally. She meant far too much to him, but this was beyond his power to control. Who knew which finger was on the button which would make the clones turn and kill. It was a mystery that they were still trying to unravel, but they needed what was in Rex's brain.

"I don't like it anymore than you do," he said putting his hands on her small shoulders. "You are going to have to scan my brain and then it's going to have to be removed."

"What if you are wrong?" she asked looking up at the taller clone. Although, Rex noted, she had grown quite a bit taller since her arrival as the General's student.

"Why would I be wrong?"

"I don't know. Maybe you don't have one and it's only something they implanted in later batches."

Excuses. That was all they were. She really didn't want to know that the Kaminoans had done this to them. They were, in her eyes, people, and manipulating the brain of a person was unethical. Rex had always known that the doctors on Kamino didn't really care about ethics though when it came to an extra pay day. What they sought was money to continue their research. It seems they got a rather large sum to create clones who would be willing to destroy the people they were sworn to protect. He wondered what they had purchased with that money, but that wasn't important now.

"What if you die?" Ahsoka said, Rex thinking that he heard a small catch in her voice. Jedi were supposed to be unattached, but he knew she was far from there when it came to the soldiers.

"Does it matter if die on an operating table or in battle? I still die. No matter what your feelings, you can't stop it, if it is what is destined to happen."

Ahsoka shook her head "no" and covered her eyes with her hand. He thought maybe she was starting to tear up, but he wasn't sure. Emotions were so hard to figure out in other species. Yes, he could read all of his brothers, but he was still learning all the nuances of Ahsoka's species which included a very hard to read change in the headtails, or so the computer had told him. It was something he was sure he would be learning for a very long time to come.

"You should talk to Anakin," Ahsoka finally said looking at him again. She didn't want to make this type of decision knowing that a life was on the line and wanted to turn it over to someone she thought might have a better handle on all of the implications. Perhaps she wanted someone who might not have been so attached to Rex himself.

"He's offworld Ahsoka. What if we can save the jedi and the clones _**now**_? Wouldn't we be doing a disservice to them by not finding out what is locked inside my head?" he asked in a tone which denoted the urgency of the situation.

She was struggling with making the decision, Rex could tell by the pained look on her face. He had to help her. Nudge her a bit towards the decision that he knew she should be making. It was the only clear decision anyone could make. He had the answers, she just had to take the steps for it to be found.

"Think of all of us," Rex said appealing to her love of the soldiers and humanity in general. "Do you think we will relish the role that we will play in the ending of the jedi order? How do you expect me to live with that after I wake up from whatever programming has taken hold of my conscious mind and see your lifeless body laying at my feet? Do you want me to feel that pain? Or would you rather that I risk something now, willingly?"

Ahsoka looked at him in silence.

"Say something," he said wanting to shake her into telling him the answer that he so desperately wanted to hear. It didn't matter about his life, he was just cannon fodder. What mattered was saving the jedi from being slaughtered by a group of people who they believed that they should protect.

" I can't," Ahsoka said. "I won't sign your death warrant. Anyone, but you."

"I wouldn't let my men do this if I was not willing to do the same thing," Rex tried to reason with her.

"_**No!**_" she said louder and with more force. Rex put up his hands in a placating manner. He would just have to wait until Anakin returned, if it wasn't too late.


End file.
